Various activities in which Christians engage can thus be evaluated concerning their uselessness or usefulness, or more correctly, concerning the usefulness of uselessness therein.
Works. The Scriptures have many references to the "works" of Christians. Obviously, works are useless and unavailing of any merit for redemption or reconciliation with God. "By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified" (Gal. 2:16). We are "saved, not as a result of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:9). Religious utilitarianism, however, working on the premise of "the usefulness of usefulness," conceives of good works performed by Christians as most useful to the results-oriented objectives of their organizations and institutions. Much emphasis is placed upon the techniques and the "how-tos" for such work. Inculcation and motivational stimulation for such work is encouraged through biblical verses such as "Work out your own salvation" (Phil. 2:12), through familiar poetry which states that "God has no hands but our hands, to do His work today," and through songs about "Working for Jesus, ...striving to please Him in all that we do," or "Work for the day is coming, when God's work is through." Is not the uselessness of such usefulness evident, though, in the awareness that "God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13), as the "same God works all things in all Christians" (I Cor. 12:6)? Yet, "what use is it, if a man says he has faith, but has no works?" (James 2:14), for "faith without works is useless" (James 2:20). Paul commands the Corinthian Christians to "be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that you toil is not in vain (not useless) in the Lord" (I Cor. 15:58).
Service. Correlative with works is the idea of Christians as "servants of God" (as we have previously seen in Luke 17), who exist to serve God and serve one another. "It is the Lord Jesus Christ whom you serve" (Col. 3:24). "Serve one another" (Gal. 5:13). But much of so-called "Christian service" seems so self-serving as it serves the interests of ecclesiasticism. Is the uselessness of such not stated by Paul when He told the Athenians, "God is not served with human hands, as though He needed anything" (Acts 17:25)? Yet, that same Paul can tell the Ephesians that gifted church leaders exist "for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the Body of Christ" (Eph. 4:12).
Church. Every Christian is part of that "Body of Christ, the Church" (Eph. 1:22,23; Col. 1:18,24). "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body" (I Cor. 12:13). Many sincere Christians, though, have come to regard the ecclesiastical activities that they observe, and are encouraged to participate in, as quite useless. The repetitive rituals, the appeals to participate in programs, the institutional politics, the church growth techniques employed to increase buildings, budgets and baptisms, all seem so fruitless and inane. Are God's purposes really served by entertaining and stimulating the church members, calling them to activism in social causes, or urging them to defend the faith? Did not Jesus say that "on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18)? Yet, all Christians are called upon to be functional participants in the Body of Christ (I Cor. 12:4-31).
Preaching. "How will the church be built except by strong and forceful preaching and evangelism?" That is not what Paul said, but he did say, "How shall they hear without a preacher?" (Rom. 10:14). "Woe is me, if I preach not the gospel," he exclaimed (I Cor. 9:16), as he was called to "preach the gospel" (Acts 16:10) of the kingdom (Acts 20:25). But if we cannot save ourselves, much less anyone else, then what is the use of all this preaching? If the work of the Spirit in regeneration is like the blowing wind (John 3:8), and "no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit" (I Cor. 12:3), then is our preaching all that useful? Especially when much of contemporary preaching is but an attempt to persuade someone to change or alter their belief-system; nothing more than propaganda technique. Yet, Jesus commanded us to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation" (Mk. 16:15), and Paul encouraged Timothy to "Preach the word" (II Tim. 4:2).
Knowledge and Wisdom. Christians are encouraged to be "filled with the knowledge of His will" (Col. 1:9), and to have "the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him" (Eph. 1:17). But enlightened with the empiricism of intellectualism, Christians have mistaken the knowledge of personal intimacy for the knowledge of rationalism. What useless bits and bytes of information their theological and philosophical discussions seem to be. With finite reasoning they attempt to get God figured out and crammed into their cranial cavities. Their arguments about the chronology of the Genesis creation or about the Revelation vision are equally as pointless. Paul indicated that if we had "all knowledge, but did not have love," it would be useless (I Cor. 13:2), for mere knowledge just makes us arrogant and proud (I Cor. 8:1). Yet, it is important to recognize "the true knowledge of God's mystery, that is Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:2,3), and to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ" (II Pet. 3:18).
Prayer. If there has been an activity over which Christians have struggled most concerning its usefulness or uselessness, it might be prayer. "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much," writes James (5:16), but many Christians have questioned his assertion of the usefulness of prayer. If God is omniscient and knows what we need prior to and more perfectly than we do, then what is the use of informing Him in prayer? Who are we to tell Him what to do, or to attempt to be His counselor (Rom. 11:34)? Most of the prayers of Christians seem to be so self-serving as they seek to get something or beg some blessing from God. Indeed, "we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words" (Rom. 8:26). What, then, is the use of our prayers? Yet, we are to be "devoted to prayer" (Rom. 12:12; Col. 4:2), and to "pray without ceasing" (I Thess 5:17) or "losing heart" (Lk. 18:1).4
Do these considerations of the activities of Christians leave us with a continued confusion concerning the usefulness or uselessness of such activities? Are we left with a paradoxical antinomy that is beyond the law of reason, or a dialectic tension that cannot be resolved? Though the ways of God are said to be "unfathomable" (Rom. 11:33), it is of utmost importance that we attempt to understand the differing premises between humanistic utilitarianism and Christian faithfulness.
The purpose of this study is to consider the unique relation between God and man through Jesus Christ which accounts for and allows for the "new way" of Christian functionality. This concept is foreign to the natural understanding of human function, and totally opposite to the manner in which the secular world and religion operates. The modes of operation are contrary and antithetical one to the other (modi operandi ad contrarium).
Paul explained to the Corinthians that the "natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised" (I Cor. 2:14). The "spiritual man," on the other hand, who has the Spirit of Christ indwelling his/her spirit, can appraise spiritual realities because the Spirit "searches all things, even the depths of God" (I Cor. 2:10), "that we might know the things freely given to us by God" (I Cor. 2:12). With that in mind, we seek to contrast the perspectives of human existence and human function, between the natural world and its natural religion, and the spiritual reality of Christianity.
The natural world of mankind in their fallen spiritual state have determined that the usefulness of human usefulness must be directed toward the teleological end of human enhancement and human progress, i.e. man's glory. Man is the end of all things! The Christian perspective begins with the premise of God, by His Son Jesus Christ, being the beginning and the end of all things (Isa. 41:4; Rev. 22:13). Usefulness is then determined by accord with God's intent. The teleological end of human existence is regarded to be the glory of God. We were "created for His glory" (Isa. 43:7). And since God "does not give His glory to another" (Isa. 42:8; 48:11), He is only glorified when His All-glorious character is expressed within His created order.
In order to achieve the natural objective of evolutionary human betterment the natural man must employ the means of natural and directly causal processes. The modus operandi is that of human understanding and exertion, whereby the expedient activity and pragmatic productivity of man might be the causal means to their utopian goal. By the utility of human activity they presume to progress toward a better world and an advanced collective society, "heaven on earth." The significance of the individual is but to serve as a temporary cog in the collective wheel of productivity. Uselessness is the failure to be useful and productive in their self-defined utilitarian means of activism. To revert to passivism is to accept the futility of giving up hope for man's achievement and advancement.
The spiritual perspective of Christianity does not identify their modus operandi in the linear logic of causality by seeking a direct human means to the divine end. All attempts to understand and explain human usefulness as a beneficial means to an end, necessarily deny the relational, rather than causal, basis of God's economy. Rather than relying on natural human processes, the Christian recognizes the supernatural Person and activity of God, operative in man spiritually as the Spirit of Christ indwells the spirit of individual men (Rom. 8:9), and providing the dynamic of the divine Do-er in the activity of such Christian persons. Instead of human utility, Christianity relies upon divine ontology, the very Being of God functioning within His creature man. By His grace activity, which is always in accord with His character, through Jesus Christ (John 1:17), God is the dynamic for the fulfillment of His own end. Whereas the natural man operates by the causal expedience of human activity, the Christian operates by the character expression of divine activity. The active "doing" is not just an endeavor of beneficial means, but the "doing" that is expressive of the Being of God in man, allowing for godly character than can only be a result of God functioning in the behavior of man. In such a context Jesus explained to His disciples that "Apart from Me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5) that is of any spiritual or eternal consequence.
Created with volitional response-ability toward the activity of God, the Christian can make a responsible choice of faith to be available to and to participate in the divine activity of God's grace. The choice of faith is the willingness of human receptivity to God's activity. Avoiding the extremes of the personal resolve of human determinism and the closed-end inevitability of divine predeterminism, Christianity recognizes the responsibility of the individual Christian to be receptive to God's grace in faith (cf. Eph. 2:8,9). Faithful obedience is simply the relational "listening under" the revelation of God in order to discern what He desires to be and do in each individual Christian. Failure to thus hear from God in order to be persuaded and convinced of how He desires to engage Himself in us, often leads to the frantic and frenetic activities of religious uselessness.
The tragedy of the misnomer of "Christian religion" is that they have substituted a teleological objective of alleviating human needs, resolving social crises, converting human souls, and increasing their institutional membership and assets, in place of the glory of God. Perceiving God's grace as but an infused boost of empowering to enable man to act in accord with their objectives, faith then becomes an epistemological belief-system that provides the conviction and commitment to thus act. Such "self-made religion" (Col. 2:23), with its "works" theology, can only encourage increased involvement in its useless activities, continually teaching new techniques for such. Religion has merely adapted the naturalistic means of activism and utilitarianism for its own ends.
Repudiating the usefulness of both the end and the means of naturalistic humanism (despite their claims of "modernity"), Christians must refocus upon God in Christ. Freely and spontaneously they can participate in the dynamic of God's grace as the "life of Jesus is manifested in their mortal bodies" (II Cor. 4:10,11). In so doing they experience the freedom to be man as God intended man to be, and the expectant hope of the eternality of such a relationship. But, to the extent that their objective is to get humanly quantifiable results for what are considered useful human and religious endeavors, they are necessarily enslaved to the utilitarian process, and miss the grace of God. In fact, to the extent to which Christians attempt to debate or evaluate the usefulness of their actions, they only verify the uselessness of such endeavors. The usefulness of what we do can only be evaluated by God. We must leave the results to Him! To accept that is to participate in the usefulness of the endeavors, while at the same time recognizing our uselessness and dispensability. God does not need us to do what He does!
In humility we recognize that we are derivative men, dependent upon God. We are "at His disposal;" available and dispensable. It is not what we do, but what God does that is of value, worth, significance, and usefulness. We are not co-operators in Christian activity, wherein God does His half, and we do our half, qualifying us to be half useful and half useless. No, it is only what God does that is of any useful consequence.
Is it not patently and blatantly obvious that the Christian perspective of human activity is a radically different understanding of why we do what we do, and how we do what we do? It provides a meaningful raison d'etre that reveals a useful significance of uselessness in the eternal scheme of God's relations with men. Such can only be known and appreciated by those who are participants in the intimacy of such a spiritual relationship, however. Attempting to explain such spiritual reality in the human language of physical, space/time, causal logic requires figurative and pictorial analogies (like the parable of the useless servant), and makes one feel like he is trying to explain the inexplicable. The "usefulness of uselessness" must be spiritually appraised. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying" (Rev. 2,3).
Greetings in posting this article which I felt was a real side by side view of actions derived from a relationalship verses that of a mere program, the two are entirly unrelated, the wealth sought in the Spirit led life is purly relational.
ReplyDeleteThe article and author make a clear distinction in shelf life faith, verses an active awareness, and involoved particpation in the pursuit of God as whole in three persons.
Adding P.G.S. HOPWOOD 1937 relgious ecxperience of the primitive church or assembly here,adds in his book a few insights into the relational aspects and profound historical factors which bring a wealth to anyone interested in the truths leading up to these type of discussions.and far more complete understanding here listed in site.
I like to add further get Dr. walston works on the Spirit, you'll see the extent of the large vacumm on this topichas goen for far to long,
staggering to say the least to see such an abscence, enjoy, encouragement in life of faith not in weakness.